Willie Pesek, Columnist

Japan's Nuclear Nightmare

Two years after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima reactor, which is polluting the Pacific Ocean, Japan's government has done little to wean the country from nuclear power.Â

August 7, 2013 at 1:12 PM UTC

By Willie Pesek

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I had a terrible dream last night. I imagined it had been 29 months since a giant earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, the reactor continued to spew radiation into the sea just 135 miles away from my home in Tokyo -- and the Japanese government was standing by and doing nothing. Wait! Sadly, until earlier today, that was reality.

The real nightmare for me and the 126 million people who reside in Japan was that it took Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this long to step in to help Tokyo Electric Power -- the plant's owner -- to deal with tons of radioactive groundwater spilling into the Pacific Ocean. Stopping the leakage could cost tens of millions of dollars; Tepco, which continues to insist that the contamination is minor, would clearly not have been eager to pony up.